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Reuters is reporting what we already knew – Obama is set to increase taxes. He will do this by not renewing the Bush tax cuts which are set to expire at the end of this year.

In true class warfare style, Obama has only mentioned that he will be raising the evil rich peoples’ taxes, and not the middle-class that is supposedly held so dear by politicians.

According to the article,

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 — though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

This all an outrage. In my recent post at The Right of a Nation – Record budget deficit forthcoming, I mentioned the importance of creating an “economically fertile” environment in order to create jobs, as opposed to trying to throw money around in order to create temporary jobs that may only last as long as that money is there. I also mentioned Bush cutting taxes, and the capital gains tax in particular, as an example of this.

It appears that Obama is looking at these tax cuts and thinking “wow we could be getting this tax money from these people and putting it all into the government” but is not considering the much larger effect that these taxes have on the economy.

edit – Oops, I didn’t even finish the article. Here are some more examples of tax increases on middle class families:

Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;

The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;

The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;

Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;

The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

UPDATE: Reuters has pulled this story with the explanation “The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week.”

Well, being a Democrat, he said he was going to lower taxes on the “middle-class” and raise taxes on the “upper-class.” This is part of what is called class warfare, and it is used, especially in times of economic difficulty, to try to get the lower and middle class people riled up about the fact that they are struggling and the upper-class is not.

In addition, it looks like by not renewing the Bush tax cuts, he will actually be raising taxes for the middle class as well.